And from then on—Phœbe could not help but notice it—Grandma seemed to take great interest in Phœbe, to be with her often, to make her little presents, and buy her little things, and say so much to her that was sweet. For which reason Phœbe came to understand Grandma better, and daily their love for each other grew.
CHAPTER XVIII
“You can’t tell anything by the way a day starts,” philosophized Phœbe, as she unlaced her shoes preparatory to going to bed; “because a wonderful day starts exactly like an ordinary one.”
The day had indeed started ordinarily enough—with the usual routine: breakfast, twenty minutes in the open air, then an hour equally divided between spelling and sums. Next Uncle John “heard” the spelling, and looked over the sums; after which, settling himself in a big, comfortable chair by a window,—his back to Phœbe—he listened while she read aloud from Dickens’s “Child’s History of England.”
Phœbe liked the reading aloud best. Because she had discovered that if she would read quietly, and in one tone, Uncle John could be counted upon to fall asleep during the first ten minutes. Whereupon Phœbe, with “Little Women” handy, or “Sara Crewe,” or, better still, something by “The Duchess”, was able to change from the History to a story without in any way disturbing Uncle John.
When Uncle John was finished with his after-breakfast sleep (Sophie confided to Phœbe that it was his liver), he invariably wakened with a start, pretending that he had not been dozing at all, said “Yes, yes, yes,” as he got up, and “Very well, dear child,” as he crossed to the table and his work, and Phœbe was then at liberty either to go on reading from the book of her choice or betake herself elsewhere.
But this was to be a wonderful day. For no sooner was Phœbe engrossed in her book, as her clergyman uncle was in his sermon, than Sophie appeared, looking flushed and important. She made toward the big table with a swish of her starched skirts. She bent to whisper something. Whereat Dr. Blair sprang up with a joyful exclamation and strode out.
It so happened that Phœbe was reading “Airy, Fairy Lillian”. On Sophie’s entrance she had quickly closed that fascinating volume and slipped it between her back and the chair, then folded her hands thoughtfully in her lap; not that she feared to let Sophie know what she was reading—as a matter of fact it was Sophie who had recommended “The Duchess” books, and pointed out the place of their hiding. But Phœbe knew that whenever Uncle John was roused out of the strange, dazed—almost cataleptic!—condition into which he fell when he worked, he was more likely than not to take stock of everything about him. And Phœbe did not care to have him see “Airy, Fairy Lillian”.
Uncle John gone, Sophie did a hop-skip to Phœbe’s chair. “What d’ y’ think!” she exclaimed excitedly.
Phœbe looked up languidly. Secretly she was annoyed at Sophie’s interruption, for the exquisite Lillian (a sort of novelized Marguerite Clark) had just sprained her slender, silken-covered ankle, and a lover fully as handsome as Dustin Farnum was about to take Lillian up in his strong young arms.